If you are looking for a clear, concrete overview on social constructionist research and analysis, look no further than Constructing the Social. This timely volume pools the talents of many leading psychologists and sociologists, who in each case ground theory into practical examples. Contributors demonstrate that human beings are principally social agents rather than passive reactors that process information. Each contributor analyzes the historical and cultural contexts implicit in a wide range of key issues including anxiety, the family, intelligence, aging, (...) and depression. Constructing the Social is an invaluable resource for psychologists, sociologists, and other researchers across the social sciences who seek to understand the implications of social constructionist theory. (shrink)

The disease construction of schizophrenia is no longer tenable. That construction originated during a period of rapid growth of biological science based on mechanistic principles. Crude diagnostis measures failed to differentiate absurd, unwanted conduct due to biological conditions from atypical conduct directed to solving existential or identity problems. The construction was communicated - in the absence of solid evidence - by medical practitioners by means of symbolic, rhetorical, and organizational acts. The patient came to be regarded as an object without (...) agency or goals. In spite of enormous research funding, no biological or psychological marker has been discovered that would differentiate diagnosed schizophrenics from normals without creating unacceptable proportions of false positives and false negatives. Employing a moral category, "unwanted conduct," as a criterion, and tacitly transforming moral judgments to the medical category, schizophrenia, leads to the use of schizophrenia/nonschizophrenia as the independent variable in research designs. The failure of eight decades of research to produce a reliable marker leads to the conclusion that schizophrenia is an obsolescent hypothesis and should be abandoned. (shrink)

My purpose in this paper is to extend the argument developed in several recent essays that the narrative is a useful—if not indispensable—root metaphor for psychology. Narrative as a root metaphor fits nicely into the world view of contextualism—a world view that is parallel to the mechanistic paradigm. As developed so eloquently by Stephen Pepper, contextualism draws its energy from the root metaphor of the historical act. To me, the historical act and narrativity are near-synonyms, if not identical notions. Both (...) conceptions are dependent upon time as a pivotal category. Narratives are constructed to have beginnings, middles, and endings. Histories are also constructed stories. Historical accounts are endowed with meaning only when they are located within a narrative context. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

Examines the American Psychological Association Memories of Childhood Abuse report, which contains the opposing view points of 2 subgroups of the working group that produced the report, the clinicians and the researchers. The author views the Final Report of the working group as an exercise in alternative methods of truth making. In the development of his analysis, the author explains his choice of the term "truth-making" rather than "truth finding." The process of constructing truths and the possibility of resolving contrary (...) claims to truth is discussed. The author's remarks are intended as a scaffold for an understanding of why the clinicians and the researchers could find little common ground. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)